Never Not Amazed: The signs point to change

The sign says, “Eat here or we’ll both starve.”

It’s been there as long as I can remember, a beacon to pin my location on the map and tell me if I’m coming from or going to my childhood home.

I’ve moved around, lived in different places, and the path to my hometown’s changed. Until last week, I hadn’t been on this route in years. As I drove, I delighted in the tiny towns with main streets that span just a block, the rolling hills, farmland and forests.

Could the sign be there still? The pressure of time changes things. Neighbors move on and tastes morph. A pandemic that no one saw coming and the recession that followed have taken a toll. Maybe my memory’s off and I’d miss the bend in the road and the promise of a stop that will nourish everyone.

And there it was.

A little taller and maybe a little prouder, now a rustic wooden sign face, dressed in a faded American flag with the words, “Eat here or we’ll both starve” calling out to passersby.

When I was a kid, the sign was a light box on wheels. The plastic block letter cards slid into grooves. It was a portable version of the signs that advertise the price of Happy Meals or Rock ‘n’ Roll Bowling Nites.

Rain or shine, summer or winter, the sign was there.

Around the time I finished college, they upgraded to a more substantial foundation for their message, a head-high white sign with black lettering. Lights attached at the top illuminated the sign’s face.

Its form changed, but the message and the place are still there, holding court for the community and making promises to feed a crowd. I was grateful to see it and know I can count on the sameness.

Over these years, my own face is the same and different. Sometimes, it appears so changed I don’t recognize me in the mirror. My softened jaw line’s melting down my neck. My eyebrows left me and my hair’s considering following the brows to a new home.

I see the wisdom I’ve gained, and I feel a little taller standing on it even as I’m shrinking. I don’t need a mirror to know the smile lines I’ve sported since my teens. I know how they curve and prop up my cheeks. But sometimes, my face, wrapped in experience, is alien and hard to reconcile with the image of me I hold in my mind’s eye.

Change is coming. Constant. Strumming. It has a rhythm. It rolls right along with us, announcing itself, like tires thumping on the equidistant seams in the road. It’s not a surprise. It tells you everything’s right on schedule and will keep up with you no matter how fast you drive. It’s doing what change does.

Except for those moments of peaceful sameness. Except for when we find gifts of memory that help us put the brakes on change, if only for a moment. These things, which root us and define us, are a bulwark against all that can overwhelm.

Potts Harbor is a calming foundation. I know its shape’s changed over years; ocean levels and land masses have shifted. But in my time here and the time to come, it looks the same. It recovers after storms, swallows thin ice sheets that try to form on cold, calm days, glistens in the sun and broods under heavy clouds.

I know what to expect from this landscape that roots me. It’s a place for reflection, and space from hurry, just like other landmarks in my life.

Widgeon Cove is my favorite trail. It’s a short loop through forest with a water payoff. And there’s that tree by Basin Point Road, just a regular tree wearing a smile because someone saw an opportunity to give it a face. Whenever I walk the road, I look for it and nod hello.

And there’s that winding, backcountry road that I’ve taken hundreds of times, and still have reason to find and follow because my parents are together, living in the town where I grew up.

I’m still designing the road map of my life and the unknowns and hairpin turns are exhilarating, worrying, wonder-making, horrifying. All my highs and lows aren’t yet recorded, and all my marks aren’t yet made. I wish I had a detailed legend — something to hold on to while I plot my path.

I know time’s been kind to me in many ways, though my triceps hang like hammocks and my thighs rub together so when I’m wearing the right pants and moving at the right pace, they make music. I wonder if I can do a cartwheel, and my pickleball elbow is pointed and clear that it won’t stand for acrobatics.

Time’s kindness, for people, is double-edged.

I’m grateful time didn’t starve this business on the side of the road, and it’s been kind and nourishing for my soul. In fact, it fed it. My soul’s plump, satisfied and ready for cartwheels, backflips and somersaults. It’s well fed because no matter how lost I’ve been, I always had beacons and a path back to myself.

This year, I’ll drive that country road again and gather with other well-nourished souls to celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. People will come from near and far; many will pass that sign. Maybe they’ll look out for it, like I do, and they’ll feel rooted in this place with love and gratitude, together.

My soul just grew three sizes thinking about it.

Erin O’Mara lives in Harpswell and serves on the Harpswell News Board of Directors.